CHAPTER 6, FEAR
AS he walked alone into the unrelenting darkness, he felt as though he was leaving his past life behind. Leaving his cares and worries against the walls of his former self. Without his car keys or a map or even a visible road sign in his vicinity, he was lost. What a feeling, to be lost. What did it even mean? To be lost... to not know where you are, to not know what you're doing or where you're going. He never knew where he was going, and in his head, he never knew where he was going either. To be honest, he only did what he was told to do, so technically, he was always lost. These feelings somehow focused into a light in the seething darkness of the town.
He looked ahead of him to the streets and roads, branching off like the nerves or vains of some gargantuan creature swallowing him up as he walks into the jaws of the beast. The blood from the gash in his hand dripped slowly onto the floor, not that he could see it with all the mist... He looked down and winced as the broken bone of his shoulder grated against the ragged flesh of his wound. He couldnt even see the pavement beneath his feet, the mist was so thick. For some reason, it seemed to get even darker the further he walked, even though the night was equally foreboading in all directions.
Suddenly, he saw a figure emerging from the white, whisping ground ahead of him, a twisted, lifeless husk propped against the abyss he walked on. He noticed the figure only because of the glowing, almost holy light emitting from its chest. On closer inspection, he discovered that the figure was a man, and was.... most indefinitley dead.
It's face twisted into a contorted howl, eyes arched upwards, red and bloodshot. He would check for a pulse, if the figure seemed to have any skin around the neck area... He stood for a moment in some sort of morbid fascination staring at the broken thing at his feet. It looked as though something had burst from inside him, all the wounds penetrating outwards. He crouched next to it, again wincing at the pain from his previousley acquired wounds. The arms were bant inwards towards the torso and the hands tensed and curled into harsh looking talons. Some of the fingernails looked as though they'd been ripped off, probably during a struggle.
With what...?
When...?
What had happened here? If this town wasn't deserted, why hadn't anyone seen this happen? The body looked as though it had been there for some time now, and decay was slowly taking hold of the corpse. there was no life in it at all... not even signs of the usual parasitic hosts so common with death of this kind. He listened to the silence, a sound in itself, as he crouched, oblivious to anything. He reached out and went for the torch attatched to the tattered, browned cloth, the former clothes of the deceased. As he got closer, the body seemed to contort and change... He pulled his hand away quickly, the only sound to be heard his sharp intake of breath as he watched in horror to the creature return to its original form. He again moved his hand closer to the torch, for some reason compelled to take it from its morbid plaque. Again, the creature seemed to contort at the moment his hand entered its so-called personal space. He decided to watch this time, and his eyes travelled the width and breadth of it as its eye sockets deepen, the scream on its face contort to a deadly snarl, its fingernails lengthen from the previous snapped, bloodied signals of a former struggle to sharpened claws that visually seemed to posses a great amount of physical strength. For some reason, he didn't fear this demonic change from dead to undead, and was more fascinated by what he was seeing. At the very moment his fingers curled around the flashlight, everything seemed to happen in an instant.
It was one of those moments where, as they say, you're whole life flashes before your eyes. Yet, it didnt seem to be his life, it was someone elses. He was bombarded with memories that weren't his, feelings he never felt, yearning for those he never loved and wanting to regain things he never had. He saw a pretty young girl, about 7 or 8 in a dress smiling at him, he saw a beautiful woman laying in a hospital bed covered in bandages, he saw the girl crying, the woman decaying, a car, a road, a ghostly figure, a crash, blood, shooting, beating, bones crunching under the force of his blows. All memories not his, yet all memories memories none-the-less. what is a memory if it isnt yours? can you have a memory that isnt yours? if it doesnt belong to you, it becomes merely a thought.
So in that case, his head was filled with thoughts of memories, whispered shadows in the dark recesses of his mind, whitened figures in crumpled photographs, the creases and tears preventing them from becoming truely clear to him. Who were these people? what were these thoughts? What did it all mean...
And then, with that thought, the second hand on the watch of time ticked by another second opf his life, and the thoughts of the memories were gone. He looked down at the thing in front of him, and saw his hand around the torch, the corpse dead as night. His face was blanketed with a sheet of sweat, as was his back and chest. He closed his eyes after realising he hadn't blinked for the entire time this happened. He took the torch from its placement without opening his eyes and placed it in the breast pocket of his shirt. He walked past it, opened his eyes, and headed off, feeling nothing...
Feeling something...
Feeling one thing
Fear.
AS he walked alone into the unrelenting darkness, he felt as though he was leaving his past life behind. Leaving his cares and worries against the walls of his former self. Without his car keys or a map or even a visible road sign in his vicinity, he was lost. What a feeling, to be lost. What did it even mean? To be lost... to not know where you are, to not know what you're doing or where you're going. He never knew where he was going, and in his head, he never knew where he was going either. To be honest, he only did what he was told to do, so technically, he was always lost. These feelings somehow focused into a light in the seething darkness of the town.
He looked ahead of him to the streets and roads, branching off like the nerves or vains of some gargantuan creature swallowing him up as he walks into the jaws of the beast. The blood from the gash in his hand dripped slowly onto the floor, not that he could see it with all the mist... He looked down and winced as the broken bone of his shoulder grated against the ragged flesh of his wound. He couldnt even see the pavement beneath his feet, the mist was so thick. For some reason, it seemed to get even darker the further he walked, even though the night was equally foreboading in all directions.
Suddenly, he saw a figure emerging from the white, whisping ground ahead of him, a twisted, lifeless husk propped against the abyss he walked on. He noticed the figure only because of the glowing, almost holy light emitting from its chest. On closer inspection, he discovered that the figure was a man, and was.... most indefinitley dead.
It's face twisted into a contorted howl, eyes arched upwards, red and bloodshot. He would check for a pulse, if the figure seemed to have any skin around the neck area... He stood for a moment in some sort of morbid fascination staring at the broken thing at his feet. It looked as though something had burst from inside him, all the wounds penetrating outwards. He crouched next to it, again wincing at the pain from his previousley acquired wounds. The arms were bant inwards towards the torso and the hands tensed and curled into harsh looking talons. Some of the fingernails looked as though they'd been ripped off, probably during a struggle.
With what...?
When...?
What had happened here? If this town wasn't deserted, why hadn't anyone seen this happen? The body looked as though it had been there for some time now, and decay was slowly taking hold of the corpse. there was no life in it at all... not even signs of the usual parasitic hosts so common with death of this kind. He listened to the silence, a sound in itself, as he crouched, oblivious to anything. He reached out and went for the torch attatched to the tattered, browned cloth, the former clothes of the deceased. As he got closer, the body seemed to contort and change... He pulled his hand away quickly, the only sound to be heard his sharp intake of breath as he watched in horror to the creature return to its original form. He again moved his hand closer to the torch, for some reason compelled to take it from its morbid plaque. Again, the creature seemed to contort at the moment his hand entered its so-called personal space. He decided to watch this time, and his eyes travelled the width and breadth of it as its eye sockets deepen, the scream on its face contort to a deadly snarl, its fingernails lengthen from the previous snapped, bloodied signals of a former struggle to sharpened claws that visually seemed to posses a great amount of physical strength. For some reason, he didn't fear this demonic change from dead to undead, and was more fascinated by what he was seeing. At the very moment his fingers curled around the flashlight, everything seemed to happen in an instant.
It was one of those moments where, as they say, you're whole life flashes before your eyes. Yet, it didnt seem to be his life, it was someone elses. He was bombarded with memories that weren't his, feelings he never felt, yearning for those he never loved and wanting to regain things he never had. He saw a pretty young girl, about 7 or 8 in a dress smiling at him, he saw a beautiful woman laying in a hospital bed covered in bandages, he saw the girl crying, the woman decaying, a car, a road, a ghostly figure, a crash, blood, shooting, beating, bones crunching under the force of his blows. All memories not his, yet all memories memories none-the-less. what is a memory if it isnt yours? can you have a memory that isnt yours? if it doesnt belong to you, it becomes merely a thought.
So in that case, his head was filled with thoughts of memories, whispered shadows in the dark recesses of his mind, whitened figures in crumpled photographs, the creases and tears preventing them from becoming truely clear to him. Who were these people? what were these thoughts? What did it all mean...
And then, with that thought, the second hand on the watch of time ticked by another second opf his life, and the thoughts of the memories were gone. He looked down at the thing in front of him, and saw his hand around the torch, the corpse dead as night. His face was blanketed with a sheet of sweat, as was his back and chest. He closed his eyes after realising he hadn't blinked for the entire time this happened. He took the torch from its placement without opening his eyes and placed it in the breast pocket of his shirt. He walked past it, opened his eyes, and headed off, feeling nothing...
Feeling something...
Feeling one thing
Fear.